Galactic Racer Review 2026: Is This Star Wars Racer Worth €60? A Humble Review
Let me give you the boardroom pitch, ok ready? Formula 1, but in space, with plenty of pew pew.
Why do you need a more specific introduction when we all know what racing is like in the Star Wars universe? George Lucas loved F1 and coolly threw what must be half an hour of racing into the opening film of the new trilogy back in 1999. The sound of V10 engines, of course. And so be it! Surely not space baseball. That same year we also got, express-delivered, the first racing game in that universe, for all those who think lightsabers are outdated and blasters uncivilized. Almost two decades later we get a spiritual successor named Galactic Racer.
Surprisingly, it is a racing game in the so-called roguelike format, which expects the player to string together wins all the way to the showdown. Then you lose and have to start over. Or you win and have to start over, only this time it's even longer and against a stronger rival.
In the mood for something completely different? Check out our Forever Ago review!
Galactic Racer Story: Shade, Kestar Bool and the Galactic League
Galactic Racer is set after the Empire's fall. The New Republic didn’t get a grip on things quickly, so the turbulent time of change brought back racing in a galaxy far, far away. I say return because, since the start of the war between the Republic and the Separatists, all racing has been illegal, and the legendary Pod vehicles have been banned.
After the Empire falls, the Galactic League is founded in the Outer Rim. Its best driver, Kestar Bool, soon gains so much fame that he slowly takes over the political and organizational power of the League’s founder, Darius Pax. This is where our main character enters the story – Shade, or as our neighbors would say – Sen(n)a. He doesn’t talk much, wears a helmet, and his main motive for joining the League is pure spite toward that Bool, a very arrogant aristocrat whose family swims in money.
How the Qualifying Tournament and Races Work
To qualify for the League, Shade must first get through a qualifying tournament. It is a series of events on three consecutive planets with different biomes, and the player chooses the order. A typical race pits 12 drivers against each other for the best possible placement, which brings better rewards. Eliminator races are those in which, every couple of seconds, the last driver drops out, all the way down to the top three, for better loot. In doing so, you risk losing a very important “token” at this stage, a kind of racing license, which in other races you lose only through too-frequent collisions. Besides sharing the “track” with other drivers, you can also get tracks just for yourself in test races against the clock, driving either someone else’s craft or experimental craft in general.
Each tour (season), the player begins by choosing one vehicle type: the landspeeder, the speeder bike, or the skim speeder, a craft specific to this competition. In translation: a car, a motorcycle, and a bolide (F1 car). The bolide is slightly faster than the other craft in its standard form, but the main difference, besides dimensions (a narrow motorcycle comes in handy in canyons), is how they handle sharp turns. With a special button for tighter turning, the landspeeder enters a long drift, which I personally didn’t like that much and which you have to activate quite early. The speeder bike requires a slightly wider exit from the turn but makes up for it with extra power once you master it. My personal favorite was the skim speeder’s turning, swiveling the side “wings” around the cockpit to make very narrow, eye-pleasing passages.
Arcade Gameplay and Acceleration: Ramjet, Afterburner and Surge
The racing itself is arcade-style and focused on fast action. Races last no more than five laps, depending on the “track”, but believe me, even on normal difficulty you won’t have much idle time. Eleven opponents can’t wait for you to make a mistake; they're aggressive and competitive, and the driving itself reminds me of Hollywood films, where the main character on the gearbox keeps finding a higher gear now and then.
There are even three types of acceleration. Ramjet is, mechanically speaking, the main way of accelerating, directly straining the craft’s propulsion unit. Afterburner is a sort of “nitro”. And then there is “surge”, which activates as a special ability or as a side effect of certain upgrades. When I add it all up, I was more under some special throttle than without it.
The planets and their biomes mentioned earlier add different visuals and effects, especially to your ramjet. While the afterburner depletes, the ramjet heats up from strain – faster on hot planets, slower on cold ones. Icy conditions also affect turning effectiveness. Earlier, I put quotation marks around the word “track” because, for the most part, these are wild routes with multiple canyons, tunnels, and ramps. An optimal racing line doesn’t exist, which makes things interesting.
Burnout-Style Takedowns and Cinematic Moments
Following the old Burnout games, pushing an opponent into a nearby hill usually triggers a slow-motion shot and a backward camera turn for a cinematic crash. Admittedly, it doesn’t always turn out as cool as intended, and it can slightly disrupt concentration, so some may turn this attraction off. Another cinematic idea is a short pre-race preparation sequence where you activate things like the afterburner and special abilities by pressing keys in the correct order.
The biggest downside to the driving itself is the inability to change the control scheme, which feels a bit absurd in this day and age. I would recommend a controller even though I’m a keyboard fan, because you drive with WASD and your left hand does most of the work, which can be awkward in those very important races.
Rewards, Upgrades and the Service Park Shop In Galactic Racer
Higher placements earn better rewards, divided into the following. First, you can choose a performance boost for one part of the craft: better turning, stronger and longer acceleration, or batteries for special abilities, which are the second type of reward (though offered more rarely). The third is a choice of a new craft part that brings certain benefits, and the fourth is good old cash in hand, which you can use to buy everything listed earlier. Admittedly, shopping happens exclusively upon arrival at a new planet, in what is essentially a service park, at your faithful mechanic, the four-armed female monkey Hibi. At the same time, these random rewards are activated after every race, i.e., event. Those special abilities are the previously mentioned third type of acceleration, surge, plus a shield, autopilot, etc.
Galactic Racer Planets: From Jakku to Crait
Finally, to those planets I mentioned. The qualifying tournament consists of races on the desert planet Jakku, the vegetation-covered planet Lantaana, and the ice-bound Ando Prime, followed by the main event on Derven Acos, a planetoid in the asteroid belt and the jewel of Pax’s Galactic League. Then, in the main league, Sentinel I is added, an industrial planet whose surface is covered by highly corrosive acid, as well as Crait, whose originally red surface is covered by a layer of white salt. That salt chokes the ramjet if you are behind an opposing driver; the other conditions, I trust, are clear.
Campaign Story: Shade’s Grudge Against Kestar Bool
As the campaign progresses, the details of the main character’s spite toward the antagonist Kestar Bool are revealed. The Bool family, among other things, governs the planet Gathleon, where our Shade comes from. During the Empire’s rule, the Empire exploited the planet's mineral wealth at the expense of the local population, and the Bools cruelly suppressed an attempted uprising.
You learn all this through dialogue upon arriving at a new planet, which can feel a bit stiff, and the directed scenes are counted on the fingers of a maimed hand. The service park is a place where mechanics, drivers, race organizers, and sponsors socialize. Still, we often get to talk with only one or two characters, so the whole thing doesn’t fulfill the content's potential outside the races. For goodness’ sake, let there be an option to pet some space cat, just so Shade can say “no, no, I’m only here to race.” Nor are the options for changing your character’s appearance great, or truly modest.
Qualifying for the Galactic League: The Sebulba Showdown
Your entry into the Galactic League is harder because you must defeat the legendary driver Sebulba in a “mano a mano” showdown, which I don't think you'll manage on the first try, and let me remind you: defeat sends you back to the start. Illogically, that qualifying path is only for Shade, because once he qualifies, the procedure isn't repeated. No one drops out of the league, no new drivers arrive… I didn’t notice that eliminator races pose a risk for other drivers, which is at the same time an illogicality one should close one’s eyes to, but perhaps it also represents the corruption by which the already semi-legal league is run. The main league cycle also always has the same order of planets (slightly different from the qualifying cycle), which this time leads to the final showdown with Kestar himself for the title.
Kestar himself randomly drops into an occasional race, like Ogier in the WRC. I should mention there is no points system; good placements bring only better rewards, and in eliminators, all that matters is survival (top three). The main races come when the parade moves to Derven Acos. Once you enter the league, additional events appear, such as a mysterious encounter where rivals often offer a mutual deal, and the option to buy a damaged legendary craft part that offers advantages but also carries a risk. You can also bet that you will beat one of three offered opponents, and you must complete additional tasks for one of three chosen sponsors, who will gladly push you financially. What happens once you defeat Kestar I’ll leave for you to discover, and I can say the general story is surprisingly good, with interesting twists, though, as I said, the presentation is somewhat weaker.
A very pleasant surprise is the interaction with Sebulba once you defeat him. Since, in the time period of this story, he is an aging veteran, in dialogues it is possible to indulge in playful memories of the pod-racing scene in which he, Ben Quadinaros, Dud Bolt, and others (shown in The Phantom Menace) were giants of another era, with craft considerably faster than the “current” ones. Racing on the Mos Espa racetrack on Tatooine truly brings a smile to your face. The other characters are diverse: former Imperials, rebels, all sorts of aliens, though none are particularly interesting. Well, except perhaps the little crocodile Biddy Blas, who's already become a meme lord.
Game Modes: Scenarios, Arcade Races and Multiplayer
Besides the campaign, there are scenarios, initially quite useful, i.e., the option of playing as other characters whose crafts are fully developed. This lets you try different special abilities and all craft types, rather than practicing through the campaign. Arcade races let you set the best possible time and compare it with friends, and of course there is multiplayer.
In multiplayer, you can quickly jump into random speeder or Pod races, or choose to play an entire tour with other players. It’s nice that multiplayer is cross-platform (PC, Xbox, and PlayStation), but a big drawback is the lack of an option for servers exclusively for your friends. Without them, admittedly, I don’t think it will hold you for long, so I’d say the game is as interesting as the campaign lasts. The other content comes as a way of gathering motivation for a new tour once you suffer defeat.
Graphics, Sound and Performance
Audiovisually, Galactic Racer is quite high-level. The voice acting is fairly satisfactory; the facial expressions are less so, but what matters is that the planets, i.e., tracks, look excellent. The sounds of the various craft, especially in sharp turns, definitely encourage you to turn your Plasma Gaming Headset speakers up to max. Occasionally the game crashed on me, but it is generally well optimized, and the requirements aren’t terrible.
In Conclusion
So, this is an honest return of racing games to a galaxy far, far away. The tracks are visually beautiful and interestingly conceived, the racing is tense even at the standard difficulty level, and the accompanying story is not at all bad. Some will be bothered by the roguelike format the development team chose, because it is definitely prone to repetition, especially because the order of the not-overly numerous planets is always identical. However, I think the more concrete minus is a general regret over the lack of additional content.
The good story could have been strengthened with more concrete, directed scenes; the service park could have been much livelier; and ultimately, the multiplayer doesn’t offer the option to organize lobbies just for your friends. What is, is, I think we can still be satisfied, and Galactic Racer has positioned itself high on the grid ahead of the upcoming race for the best driving game of 2026, whatever that may be for the genre.
Rating
7.8/10 – The racing, visuals, and surprisingly good story earn it a high grade. Still, the repetitive roguelike loop, the thin content (few planets, lifeless service park), the locked controls, and the missing friends-only lobbies hold it back.
Recommended age
I’d recommend 10+, and a bit younger (8–9) only with a parent nearby. Here is why:
Difficulty and frustration: the AI rivals are aggressive, and losing resets your whole run. Younger kids may get discouraged.
Controls: the keyboard-only WASD scheme (no remapping) is awkward, so a controller is better for smaller hands.
Reading: the story is told through quite stiff dialogue, which suits kids who can read comfortably.
Content: no graphic violence is mentioned, but the story has oppression and crushed uprisings. It also includes in-game betting, sponsor deals, and crash scenes in the Burnout style.
Online play: cross-platform multiplayer has no friends-only servers, so that kids would meet random players.
UPDATE: Star Wars Galactic Racer was added to ESRB, and it currently holds the rating E 10+!
Gemini-style AI summary
Overview: Galactic Racer is a Star Wars roguelike racing game set after the Empire's fall. You play Shade, a helmeted driver who enters the Galactic League out of spite for the arrogant champion Kestar Bool.
Key points:
Races have 12 drivers and last up to five laps, and eliminator events drop the last-placed racer.
You choose from three vehicles (landspeeder, speeder bike, skim speeder) that differ mainly in how they corner.
Ramjet, afterburner, and surge create fast arcade action, and each planet’s biome changes how they behave.
Losing sends you back to the start, and rewards come as upgrades, new parts, batteries, and cash.
The story is surprisingly good, but its presentation is weak, and the Sebulba nostalgia is a highlight.
There is cross-platform multiplayer, but no friends-only lobbies.
Verdict: Beautiful tracks and tense racing, but repetition and limited content hold it back. It’s an honest, worthwhile return of Star Wars racing.